


Stained Glass

by OrionLady



Category: Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Bromance, Epic Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Muteness, Psychological Torture, Recovery, Team as Family, verbal assault of my country's favourite dish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-24 05:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20700950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrionLady/pseuds/OrionLady
Summary: Daniel and Jack spent over a month captive. They’ve been retrieved and safely brought back to the SGC, but rescue takes much longer than that. Sam knows the sight of those muzzles will haunt her to the grave. Now if only they could get Daniel totalk. Set around season 4.





	1. Chapter 1

Thirty nine.

Thirty nine days since they lost Daniel and Jack to a galaxy-sized haystack. Thirty nine days of an absence that broke them all.

Thirty nine days, twelve hours, and fourteen minutes for everyone’s minds to imagine the worst. The darkest realities.

This blew all of them away.

There was hardly a mark on him. No bloody torture marks or broken bones. They hadn’t expected that.

Janet still cried when they tracked him down in the labyrinth of underground prison cells. It was the first time anyone had seen her professional veneer shatter.

She clutched at a conscious—and wasn’t _that_ the miracle of the day—wide eyed Jack by his dirty shirt front. “_Colonel_.” It came out as a cracked, agonized noise. Primal. Holding on by a fingernail.

Jack’s gaze snapped to Janet and then everywhere else. Alarm flashed in the bloodshot eyes.

Nobody could stop staring at his face. Sam swore. One of the sergeants shoved past Janet out the cell to throw up.

“Colonel,” Janet cried again. Her tears were a deluge on the stone floor.

Jack tried to keen back but got an electric like shock. He flinched backwards, shoulders glued to the wall.

Janet had him on the gurney and rolling through the city so fast Sam had to run to catch up. On the search party’s trek through Town Square, they were showered with rice and confetti. Smiles and laughter flooded every side—everything was safe now.

The dictator scientist had been killed.

Freedom celebrations shook the cobbles. Some of the SG teams were off accepting awards on Earth’s behalf.

Janet, Sam, and SG-2 ignored them all. Janet’s tears had finally stopped and now her hard features were a terror to behold. 

Jack fought her the whole way. Malnutrition and light deprivation and _God only knew_ what else meant even her smaller hands pinned him easily. But it didn’t stop him from fighting.

“Colonel—_Colonel!_ Haines is dead. You’re free. We’ve got you. He can’t run any more experiments on you.”

_He can’t lie to us anymore either_, Sam thought, equal parts smug and dismayed.

“Do you understand me, Colonel?” Janet pushed. “Do you recognize who we are?”

Jack’s eyes grew ever more frantic. Limbs flailed wildly, clumsy and limited from having been locked in such a confined space. He’d lost so much muscle.

They made it to the ‘gate steps. Janet, bless her, hauled the gurney nearly off the ground before a shocked SG-2 rushed to assist. Adrenaline rolled off the petite woman like a typhoon. She trembled with shock and rage. She, like the rest of them, couldn’t stop staring at O’Neill’s face.

Jack’s struggles weakened. His body was winning—or losing. Sam couldn’t decide which.

They’d just blasted through the horizon, familiar ramp under Sam’s boots, when Jack closed his eyes and two fat tears rolled down his cheeks.

Despite the massive crowd in the gate room, a hush slapped them all. The reality of this rushed, traumatic rescue finally hit Sam and she put a hand over her mouth. No one breathed. They all gaped in horror at Jack.

The silence was enough to kill. Kill Sam’s hope, anyway.

It was Hammond who broke the stillness.

Underneath the trained face lurked a fury such as Sam had never seen. Blackening his eyes and creating mountains in his face. Weaker men would flee at such an expression. Hammond’s arm drew back. At first Sam thought he was going to punch the cement wall.

Then his hand rebounded like a trebuchet. A tinsel pitched shatter filled the room:

Haines’ “goodwill box”—medical secrets, technological blueprints, and all—scattered in a thousand porcelain slivers.

SG-2 nodded their approval. Haines had sent it through, saying it was a sign of good faith and “we are searching with all diligence for your friends”…Sam sucked in a huge breath and let out a sob.

_Haines played us all along._

Teal’c only had eyes for Jack. He climbed the ramp, approach slow. Blood coated his battle robes and Sam hoped it was Haines’.

“The mask.” His whisper made Janet start up again. “He looks like Bane, from the films.”

No one laughed. Even Sam’s father couldn’t hide a quiver of his lips.

So many of their allies had united to find the lost pair. Martouf, the Nox, other planetary leaders. Now they all stood, devastated, in the wake of such cruelty.

Jack, though strapped down now, thumped Teal’c on the chest. The burly Jaffa knelt and cradled Jack’s head like a child. And still the massive tears clouding Jack’s eyes…

“What is it, O’Neill?” Teal’c sounded as close to cracking as Sam could fathom. “You are safe.”

He held Jack’s bruised fingers with his other hand and ran alongside the gurney to the infirmary. Jack’s silent pleading was too much to stomach. Airmen, techs, _cooks_. All lined the hallway, weeping.

Jack thumped Teal’c again.

“O’Neill?” The Jaffa sounded much like Janet had earlier.

“Of course!” Sam suddenly understood. “Forgive me, Colonel.”

She gripped a fistful of the soiled prison shirt to get his attention. “SG teams are out looking for Daniel. We’ll find him. He was probably just released with the other prisoners.”

Jack closed his eyes again. His chest bucked with sobs the muzzle wouldn’t let him voice.

Teal’c was already asking Hammond if he could join the search. General Hammond tiredly waved his permission.

Jack’s trembling hand reached for something that wasn’t there, something in his memories.

Sam’s knees hit the ground. Her ears rang.

“Carter?”

“Sam?”

“Sammy? Hon?” Jacob shook his daughter.

Sam swayed. “We’ll find him. We’re going to find him.”

* * *

Teal’c never ran for his life.

Never just his. He always ran for the lives of others. Now he ran for two.

_I am coming. Don’t give up. I am coming._

The prisoners and slaves ran in the opposite direction as Teal’c. The Jaffa frantically searched faces and eyes.

If it weren’t for the fact everyone on P4-985 had black or dark auburn hair, Teal’c would never have noticed the honey brown head.

Teal’c’s second sight, of startling, cyan eyes in this sea of chocolate, yanked the sound from his throat before he could stop it—

“Daniel Jackson!”

Daniel, eyes blown wide, stared at Teal’c. A muzzle to match O’Neill’s clamped, tighter than the colonel’s, over Daniel’s mouth and jaw.

The linguist’s palm shivered a little, as if he wanted to reach out for Teal’c but stopped himself.

Daniel was afraid.

_Daniel Jackson is afraid._

Not the forces of Hell itself could stop Teal’c in that moment. Fire, lethal and protective, welled inside Teal’c strong enough to send him into a sprint.

A hard faced, older man pulled Daniel back by his shoulders. At first Teal’c wondered if this man was deranged or short in faculties, for he dragged Daniel into an empty field. There was nowhere to run, exposed.

Then the man reached into his robes and pulled out a small clicker. With one press, a pod ship de-cloaked.

“Stop!”

The man swung around at Teal’c’s booming command.

“Stay back!” ordered the man. “I am Gruger, Haines’ chief adviser, and not even you meddling aliens can stop me. This filth,” he spit on Daniel, “is my insurance. You will let me go or I will kill it. See how much your government will want it when this is over.”

“We will find you.” Teal’c’s voice came out quieter than even he expected. “Even if only I am left to take up the task, I will hunt you down and retrieve Daniel Jackson—he is not an ‘it.’ You will pay for your crimes here.”

Gruger’s jaw slackened. “You would fly across galaxies for one puny human?”

“No,” said Teal’c, tensing when Gruger withdrew a knife. Daniel trembled faintly. Teal’c smiled to reassure Daniel, full of affection and warmth. “I would cross galaxies for one of my dearest friends and an intellect the universe sees but once in a lifetime.”

“I’ve run the tests.” Gruger inched back. Teal’c, tilted to the side, followed. His staff grew sweaty in his palm. “This human’s mind holds nothing but useless lexicons and images of _more _humans. He is weakened by memories of them.”

“And yet it is _you_ standing alone, without a friend,” said Teal’c.

This answer apparently shocked Gruger for he glanced at Daniel.

Teal’c saw his opportunity. He darted forward, managing to grab the front of Daniel’s shirt. His other hand brought the staff down.

“_No_!” Gruger roared. He sidestepped Teal’c’s weapon aimed for his skull.

Gruger’s knife sliced a wide arc. Teal’c repositioned and thumped Gruger across the crown of his head. The man crumpled, not breathing or moving.

Teal’c only had eyes for Daniel. His friend’s gaze was everywhere and nowhere.

“Daniel Jackson?”

The archaeologist touched his side, a strange flap in the prison shirt. His hand came away crimson.

He collapsed before Teal’c could catch him.

* * *

Janet didn’t say a word when Sam rolled in a tray of mechanical tools. The two women worked fluidly around each other. Jack was bent over a flipped-around wooden chair so Sam could have access to the muzzle, his elbows on the high back.

He now wore blue scrubs and clean socks, blinking slow. Every muscle stiffened, however, when Janet approached with a full syringe.

She stopped. Her eyes traveled over his emaciated frame, the dark shadows in and under his eyes, and the faint needle point bruising on his bare arms.

“Do you know where you are, Colonel?”

Again that agonized expression, too open for the normally gruff face. But Jack nodded.

“Good. Everything’s over now. We can…”

She trailed off when Jack shook his head. Sam gripped his shoulder from behind. She swallowed at the sharp bones under her fingers.

“Teal’c will find him, sir.”

Janet had other concerns. Her brows rose. “They fed you nutrients through injection, didn’t they?”

Another tired nod.

“You haven’t had that thing off in over a month?!” Sam cried.

Jack didn’t move. That was answer enough. Sam sat down on a nearby hospital bed and fiddled with a screwdriver to compose herself.

Janet talked quietly to Jack. She waved the syringe. “This is just an antibiotic. In case of infection from the water they fed you through those air holes.”

Jack placed a hand on Fraiser’s arm. She patted it and gave him the injection well away from the scarring on his arms.

An hour back at the SGC and people still stopped by the infirmary doors to murmur reassurances to a lost looking Jack.

“Alright, people,” Janet snapped, capping off the syringe. “This isn’t a sideshow or a funeral. Move it along.”

While Janet sponged at the grime on her patient, Sam stood. She wiped sweaty palms on her BDUs and stepped behind Jack.

The muzzle was a sleek thing, all black that covered the nose and mouth, clasped at the back of the head. She glared at tiny silver patches of air holes on either side of his mouth, barely large enough to take in deep breaths. Faint rust shone on the edges.

Had either of them passed out during their captivity from oxygen deprivation? Would the rust have an adverse effect on their lungs?

_Stop it_. Sam shook herself. _Focus on what you can do to help now._

She immediately saw that welding through it wouldn’t work. Sam didn’t want to imagine the agony it would cause Jack to sear at it.

No, they were going to have to do this the patient way.

Sam eyed the gold, circular clasp. Neat. Framed by Jack’s grey hairs. Inserting the screwdriver in the lock, she gave an experimental tug. No electric shock. That was good.

By the end of five minutes, Sam sweat, Jack panted, and the lock held firm. With one last yank, Sam gave up.

“It’s not working. How would Haines have used these?”

Janet glanced up. “With a key, I suppose.” She laid another warm compress over Jack’s spasming neck and leg muscles.

“We don’t have a k—”

Sam dropped the screw driver. Jack and Janet both jumped. “That’s it! Janet, do you have silly putty?”

“Silly what?”

“Clay,” Sam pressed. “Play Dough. Wax. Anything.”

The long look Janet sent her bloomed with excitement. “Cassie’s moulding paste for school.”

Sam shot off for Janet’s office. The doctor gripped Jack’s knees. “Hold on, sir…Jack. We’re going to get you out.”

Shaking his head again, Jack pulled away. He knocked on the back of the chair.

“Yes, sir. Knock on wood that it will work. I hope so too.”

Still shaking, Jack’s head landed in his palms. Tears dripped onto the scrubs. He knocked again.

“I don’t understand, sir.” Janet waved at Sam when she rushed back in. “Is this Morse Code?”

Jack started tapping in earnest, new rhythms. Sam’s lips tightened. “Not even close.”

Jack sobbed harder.

* * *

Teal’c had never talked so much at one time in his life. Stories of home, of his wife and son, of O’Neill’s secret pie recipe, of Batman and John Wayne films.

Occasionally he asked a question to the man in his arms. “Are you with me?” or “Do you know who I am?”

Daniel just stared at him or his eyes drifted away. This contrast to O’Neill’s manic awareness worried him. Daniel had regained consciousness within minutes, a good sign. There was no sign of a concussion when Teal’c had done a cursory exam of his cranium.

It was a small thing, so insignificant that most people wouldn’t notice. But it rubbed at Teal’c like shackles—

Daniel wouldn’t rest his head on Teal’c’s chest. His head always bobbed on Teal’c’s collarbone when he carried him off a battlefield. Every time, without fail.

Except now.

He sat like a steel cable in Teal’c’s arms. Pliant as Teal’c maneuvered him however he needed to get over the terrain. But far from soft. With the muzzle on, Teal’c couldn’t read the normally expressive mouth. Daniel seemed in a world of his own, unaware even that his side bled.

Teal’c tried to gently lower Daniel’s head to his chest but Daniel resisted.

The only sign of life Teal’c got was when they stepped through the horizon and Daniel’s white fingers twisted in Teal’c’s shirt.

Teal’c paused at the action and looked down. “We are home, Daniel Jackson.”

A med team and gurney stood ready but Teal’c ignored them. Selfishly, he didn’t want to relinquish his grip on a warm and _alive_ Daniel Jackson. So he marched to the med bay, his face a wall but his hands gentle.

Nothing garnered a reaction out of Daniel. Walter tried to chat with him, Hammond murmured that the people of P4-985 were free from Haines’ tyranny, and Teal’c mourned over the linguist’s emaciated frame in his arms.

Daniel searched the sea of faces and he tensed. They turned a corner. Then another.

And suddenly Daniel’s hands shot out to either side. The quiet procession erupted to life.

“Sir!”

“Daniel Jackson! Are you in pain?”

“Can’t risk a sedative—”

“Get me Doctor Fraiser.”

“Blood pressure—”

Panicked voices tried to calm a distressed, bleeding archaeologist. Daniel scrunched his eyes and slapped the walls on either side, leaving bloody hand prints. His breaths were shallow puffs, metallic sounding through the mask holes.

Teal’c, who’d let Daniel stand on his feet, couldn’t get the wiry man moving again. Daniel had planted himself like a tree in floodwaters.

In the frenzy, Teal’c cupped the contorted face, too wan, and heard Daniel’s silent screams in his own soul.

* * *

“_Unscheduled off world activation!_”

“Oh what now?” Janet snapped off her gloves. “I could have had a nice, tame job at the country’s leading children’s hospital but no. I chose a life of saving your world-hopping behinds.”

She glanced at Jack. Her attempt at humour only got her a sigh from the colonel. He’d calmed but the dead eyes were significantly worse. He hadn’t even reacted to the PA and distant commotion.

“Why don’t you get some rest?” Janet offered. She pointed to the bed. “Living in a two by two cell for a month can’t have been conducive to sleep.”

Jack just sighed again, chin on his arms. Every second he wore that hellish contraption was a month off her life, Janet was sure.

“Got it!” Sam jogged in, triumphant. She held up the paste they’d poured into the clasp, then a tiny key. It had the glisten of something freshly laser cut. “Worked like a charm. You’ll have to thank Cassie for me.”

“I’ll be sure to.” Janet smiled. “I can’t believe an old thief’s trick worked.”

She’d barely finished speaking when Jack lept to his feet. He bolted past Sam and down the hall.

Janet, hot on his heels, had no idea how he’d heard it over the din. But two corridors down they found him—

Daniel, slapping the walls for all he was worth.

Jack’s tripping run faltered but he pushed on, knocking the wall in that strange rhythm again. So hard that his knuckles bruised.

Daniel’s head shot up.

Their eyes met and everyone watching felt an almost physical jolt shoot through the air. It froze Janet in her tracks.

Over twenty feet of hallway separated Daniel and Jack.

It might as well have been a toothpick.

Unsteady on their feet, cheeks flushed, holding the walls for support, Daniel and Jack’s palpable longing propelled them forward. Their arms stretched for each other. Daniel’s whole body trembled.

Everyone knew they should help, fulfill their roll in getting them to the infirmary—yet in this moment it felt like blasphemy. A crowd of over fifty people and none of them could do anything but watch.

This was the pair’s first contact in thirty nine ungodly days.

Daniel buckled to his knees and Jack stumbled the rest of the way. They collapsed inwards.

Arms around each other, they gripped shirts and wept. Or, Jack did at least. Daniel vibrated so hard Janet’s teeth chattered just looking at him. His hands were everywhere: patting for injuries, smoothing new grey hairs, tapping at Jack’s heart.

Sam shouldered past the tearful crowd to unlock the muzzles. Daniel’s first, then Jack’s. She handed the contraptions to a beaming Hammond.

The general turned to an airman and said only two words. “Burn them.”

Then his gaze went back to the emotional scene.

Jack and Daniel didn’t immediately shout or babble, as expected. Instead, they _breathed._ Great siphons of air to rival a baby at its bottle.

Pulling back, Jack captured Daniel’s face in both hands. Daniel gripped his wrists. As one, their foreheads tipped together.

Janet’s eyes stung. It was the most moving thing she’d seen in a seventeen year career.

Despite oozing sores and blood blisters along Jack’s jaw, he smiled.

At this, a great cheer went up. Even Hammond whooped.

In the happy noise, Daniel knocked on the ground. Jack knocked back.

Janet, however, couldn’t see any more through a blurry film.

* * *

They got their first sound three hours later. Much longer than anyone expected the close friends to stay silent.

Hammond almost wished they hadn’t.

Both men had been set up in the cushiest hospital room Janet could arrange, beds less than an arm’s length from each other. She’d stitched the gash in Daniel’s side, thankful that it was shallower than it looked. He’d slept through the whole thing.

Now, the technicians unlocked Daniel’s hospital bed and wheeled him out the door for a CAT scan.

Jack, in a dead sleep, shot upright and wailed out an endless note that might have been Daniel’s name.

Daniel jerked awake. He came up shaking. His fingers latched around the door frame to halt the gurney.

“Did they gain any telepathy powers I should know about?” Janet barked at Sam over the noise, only half joking. Between them, the two women manhandled a sedative into O’Neill. For all the good it was doing. He yelled like the world was ending.

Several medics quivered and Hammond knew the sound of that soul-tortured wail would haunt his nightmares too.

“Let him come,” said Hammond.

Janet startled. “General, he’s dehydrated.”

“I’ll wheel him myself.”

A beat of silence descended, broken only by Jack’s huffs and Daniel’s nails peeling the paint. The heartbreaking sight made Janet nod. Once. A warning.

Hammond nodded back. “Come on, Colonel.”

Jack went docile. Just like that. So did Daniel. A medic eased Jack into the wheelchair. Hammond pushed him along, as close behind Daniel’s bed as possible.

“Daniel,” the colonel breathed, his voice still not back.

Daniel, already going back to sleep—his glazed lack of response, barring the reunion fantasia, deeply worried Janet. Hence the full body CAT scan—lifted his hand and gave a twitch of his fingers. Jack relaxed.

While Daniel was taken to the machine, Jack watched from the control room window. He hardly blinked and when he did, emotions rose to the surface. Hammond’s chest constricted.

What had Haines done to his people? To his family?

“Thanks for…g-getting us _out_, General.”

Hammond waved off the hoarse gratitude. “I’m sorry we couldn’t track you down sooner, Jack. Haines lied to us from the beginning.”

Something darkened in Jack’s eyes at the despot’s name. It was an abyss of suffering and Hammond wondered if the man would drown in it.

“General?” Major Lawrence opened the door. Hammond glanced at Janet and the technician.

“Go,” she said. “I’ll watch them.”

Hammond stepped out and closed the door. “What did you find, Major?”

“You were right,” said Lawrence. “Haines wasn’t the original leader of the planet. An overthrowing scientist, really. Most people were in prison because they’d defied him.”

“Most?” Hammond’s eyes flicked to the door.

“In one cell we found rock-scratched Phoenician and German.”

Despite the gravity of it all, Hammond smiled. “Doctor Jackson.”

“Yes, sir. Between his cell and the one in the corner we found an opaque glass set in the wall, only stronger than bulletproof glass.” Lawrence coloured, sheepish. “We, uh…we tried shooting it just to be sure. I don’t know what its function was, seeing as the prison was pitch dark.”

“Go on.”

The man licked his lips. “There were dirty hand prints on both sides of that glass.”

Hammond sighed. Now a few things made sense.

It blew him away: thirty nine days without communication except for knocking on a glass hole. They’d even developed their own language.

Lawrence’s eyes filled and Hammond felt his stomach bottom.

“Major? What aren’t you telling me?”

“A…a laboratory residence was set up down the hall from their cells, sir. We ran DNA tests on hairs stuck to neural nodes and tubes…IV lines, I guess…most of it was Doctor Jackson’s. There are a few chemicals we’ve never seen before either. M-mixed with Jackson’s blood.”

Hammond closed his eyes.

Lawrence noisily wiped his nose on his sleeve. Hammond knew things were bad if Lawrence couldn’t keep it together in front of his commanding officer. He dreaded the full report.

“Dismissed, Major.”

A click signaled the door opening. The General opened his eyes to see Janet in Lawrence’s place. 

“Doctor? How are they?”

The woman inhaled a few steadying breaths. Her badge fluttered with a wild heartbeat. Despite this, her voice came out calm.

“Both have large areas of needle scarring where injections were used to keep them alive. A few bruises but nothing substantial. No broken bones, no soft tissue damage. Their muscles are atrophied from long periods spent in a two by two cell but nothing a few weeks of physical therapy can’t fix…”

“Doctor?”

Janet almost broke down completely then. Though her face didn’t change, Hammond felt it like the crackle of air before a thunderstorm.

“I’ve only studied one case of malnutrition and photo sensitivity this bad.”

“Which was…?”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Solitary confinement prisoners in Auschwitz.”

Hammond didn’t answer. There was no answer to that.


	2. Chapter 2

They flew in audiologists, eye doctors, _larynx _surgeons. The best of the best with all their fancy gadgets.

The prognosis was immutable—

There was nothing physically wrong with Daniel Jackson’s voice or senses. He just wouldn’t talk.

This was only further proven when Jack got his voice back just fine. It still hurt the sores on his face to talk but at least he made an effort at the debriefing.

Of course, then there were dietitians and Holocaust scholars and anyone Janet could think of to help the two men keep down something that wasn’t broth.

The first time Jack had eaten a baby cracker, five days after their liberation, he’d thrown it up ten minutes later.

Janet’s face had drained of colour—the most terrified Sam had ever seen her. She knew then that things were very, very bad. That there was still a chance they might lose both to the starvation and bodies’ stubborn rejection of solids.

That wasn’t even mentioning Skype calls with psychologists and therapists to figure out how to separate the two men for longer than a bathroom break.

They were still currently in “hospital arrest” as Jack called it. Confined to a dimly lit infirmary because Daniel was touch and go for a while.

Jack could barely stand, let alone roam around, though he fought Janet on this point.

There were a scary forty eight hours where Daniel wouldn’t _eat _either. Not even water. Just stared up at the ceiling and wouldn’t respond to their voices. Catatonic. Janet ordered a crash cart on standby and Sam began to pray.

That’s when it started:

Jack opened his mouth. He talked. And talked. And _tttaallkkkeeddd_.

Over the first two weeks, that’s pretty much all he did.

It’s like he had to make up for all of Daniel’s lost words. He read Daniel books. _Long_ books. He chattered about the commissary menu and missed hockey stats. He recited the paper, jokes even when Daniel didn’t say _“who’s there?”_ in reply.

When they were finally given a wider leash, at the fifteen day mark, the SGC never lost track of Daniel because he never went anywhere without Jack and Jack was a one man talk radio station.

Sam grew used to hearing his—their—approach down the hall.

This role reversal was the most alarming thing of all, like they’d entered a topsy turvy _Wonderland_ where everything was upside down. A silent Daniel Jackson was the eighth wonder of the world.

Soldiers gaped at O’Neill pushing Daniel’s wheelchair through the corridors, his weak voice calmly informing Daniel about the latest Simpsons episode that he missed.

Three weeks of this and even Walter looked harried.

“Daniel?” Sam poked her head in. Other patients were still asleep but Daniel’s legs hung from the side of his bed. Even his lanky limbs didn’t quite touch the floor.

Sam was reminded of how much younger he was than anyone else on base, certainly the youngest on SG-1. He wore a fluffy sweater and jeans.

“You ready?”

He blinked like an owl, mouth an ‘o’.

“We talked about this last night, Daniel, remember?”

Daniel’s gaze wandered to the wall.

Sam kept her voice low. “Daniel. Hey. Stay with me. You’ve kept mashed foods down for a whole week now and you finally weigh more than Janet!”

The humour didn’t reach Daniel, as usual, but it succeeded in bringing him back to the present. Sam held out a bomber jacket.

“It’s a gift. Well, it was my father’s. I thought it would keep you warm for a breakfast picnic. It’s your twenty-fifth day home anniversary! Can’t miss out on celebrating that.”

Daniel didn’t ask for the jacket, with his hands or voice, but he squished his fingers in the leather when Sam draped it over his lap. He never asked for anything.

Anything.

Sam wanted to resurrect Haines just for the satisfaction of killing him again.

The first days back, when Daniel was well enough to sit up, Siler had given him a pen with pad of paper and waited. Daniel looked at it. Looked at Siler. Then he’d pushed it away and zoned out.

He wouldn’t shake or nod his head to simple questions.

Their concern was how much Daniel understood at all. How much he was taking in and comprehending. If psychological trauma was affecting his coherency.

Sam had to disagree with Dr. Mackenzie on that one. Daniel still jumped at sudden voices, relaxed or tensed at touch. He obeyed without hesitation, bathed and changed when ordered to.

His eyes could still follow something that fascinated him, like the therapy dog that had licked Janet’s face.

He was here he just wasn’t connecting, like he spoke a different…

It felt at first like a butterfly wing. Flutters on Sam’s skin drew closer, a faint heartbeat pulsating in time. Sam surfaced from her worry to see Daniel’s hand encircle her wrist.

It was the first contact _he_ had initiated since the day of his rescue. Over three weeks.

Sam actually jumped. Daniel’s hand disappeared.

“No! Sorry!” Sam recaptured his hand in both of hers. “Got lost in my thoughts there. We’re twins that way, huh?”

Daniel cocked his head. He pulled away to slide on the jacket. Then he met her eyes, waiting, always waiting.

“It looks good, Daniel. You remind me of my father in old war photos.”

Daniel glanced around for Jack as he stood.

“No, Daniel. Just you and I this morning.”

Sam took his elbow and ignored a pang of guilt. This excursion was a two-fold plot between Teal’c, Janet, she, and Hammond:

To get Daniel in some sunshine, something he’d gone almost two months without, and to really separate Jack and Daniel for the first time. Jack was getting the last of the sores on his face treated by a visiting dermatologist.

Something he’d been told would take less than twenty minutes.

_It’s not a lie,_ Sam argued with herself. _His procedure really will take twenty minutes. Daniel just won’t be here when he gets back_.

Sam intended to keep Daniel topside for at least an hour. Daniel pliantly followed Sam’s guiding hand to the elevator.

“I almost forgot!” Sam poked Daniel’s side. “There’s something for you in the left hand pocket.”

Daniel blinked at her, not moving. Hiding her disappointment, Sam reached in and handed Daniel a pair of prescription sunglasses. He turned them around in his hands.

Then he offered them to Sam.

“No, Daniel.” Sam sighed. “They’re for you. They go on your face.”

* * *

“Colonel?”

“Yeah. Just…just give me a minute.”

Janet said nothing. She lowered herself beside Jack and continued to rest her hand on his leg where he sat on the bed. His knees were drawn up to his chest, head bowed. His body quivered faintly under her fingers.

Today was a milestone: they’d shaved the thin stubble from his face, now that the worst of the sores were fading discolorations. Being malnourished ensured their hair hadn’t grown long under those masks, but Jack’s shoulders had squared after they finished.

He felt military, himself, again.

Until he came back to their room to find Daniel gone.

It was like narcotics withdrawal. He wouldn’t stop _shaking_.

“I know this is hard, Colonel, but—”

“No, Doc. I get it. We have to do this. Daniel deserves it. I just wish my body would get the memo.”

“Colonel.” Janet’s grip went white around his kneecap. “You were in a hostile environment for over a _month_. No safety, no telling where harm would come from next. No opportunity to even _speak_. Daniel was the only constant, the only kind soul. You found refuge in each other. I’d say it’s textbook…”

Jack coloured a little, but he smiled. Janet felt lighter just seeing it. “We’re never ordinary, huh?”

She hummed a laugh. “I didn’t think you two knew the word. Your brain will remember this is a safe space, even without Daniel an arm’s length away. Give it time.”

Jack ducked his head.

“Hey.” Janet’s firm voice raised his eyes, shame filled. “Hostage survivors experience this all the time. It is, dare I say it, normal. To be expected, anyway.”

He nodded but Janet could tell it hadn’t fully sunk in. Her chest ached.

Each man had his own issues—Jack was like a man drowning without Daniel nearby. Daniel’s mind was still lost somewhere they couldn’t reach. She felt useless. Medical knowledge could only get them so far.

O’Neill rubbed his eye and Janet gripped his hand this time.

“Colonel?” she asked, sotto voce. “What really happened in that prison? After you were ambushed?”

At first she didn’t think he’d answer at all. When he finally did, some three minutes later, his laugh was the last thing she expected.

A bitter sound, it pushed from his throat like broken glass. “My time in Iraq was more intense, physically speaking. They beat us almost every day.”

The dead glisten in Jack’s eye flared to life. “But this…to me _this_ was worse.”

Janet said nothing, not wanting to scare him off. Jack had refused to see a therapist. This was his first time directly speaking about what happened.

Her heart raced.

“They didn’t really _do_ much to me. Not after a few tests in the lab. They made me…see things. Things I wasn’t sure were real. Gathering intel about memory associations. Then they left me in that cramped hole, barring an injection every morning. Ha.”

His hands trembled now too. “Towards the end, I couldn’t even muster strength to knock back when Daniel ‘talked’ to me.

“Every few days, his cell went silent for the morning. I didn’t figure it out until later b-but I think…think they were…taking him to the lab. A_ lot _more than me.”

“They didn’t have to hit you to do harm,” said Janet. She ran a finger over the ribs visible on his collar and the electric shock scars hidden under his jaw.

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. “They had to replace my mask. Did I tell you that?”

Janet shook her head.

“I broke it.”

She stared at him.

“I short circuited the thing my first night there from…from screaming for Daniel.”

Comprehension hit Janet with the force of a Boeing. “This was worse because they didn’t see you as human.”

Jack nodded. “Not even as the enemy, like in Iraq, just…just…”

“Animals.”

Fraiser and Jack whipped up at Sam’s voice. She stood in the doorway, smelling of fresh air and cut grass.

“You were lab rats,” Janet breathed.

For a minute Sam’s overwhelming desire to cry was carbon dioxide in the room. Janet choked on it. Then Daniel brushed past Sam and her eyes went incredibly soft.

“Daniel picked a gift for you, sir.”

Everyone suddenly breathed.

Jack’s smile was almost too bright for his face. It must have hurt but he clearly didn’t care. “Well get in here then, Tonto.”

Daniel, in a new—old?—jacket, his shoulders hunched a little in some body language Janet didn’t recognize, brought his other hand out from behind his back.

Jack’s brows shot up. He pressed the blue bouquet to his nose. “Forget-me-nots! We haven’t smelt flowers in a long time, have we?”

Daniel wouldn’t relinquish his grip on them. He tugged them out of Jack’s hands. Jack’s gaze immediately sharpened and his intense concern scanned Daniel’s face. He grabbed a flapping wrist. 

“Daniel? What are you trying to…?”

Daniel’s fingers knotted in his hair. Janet tried to pull them down.

All at once, Daniel slammed the wall. At first Janet thought he was finally displaying emotion, anger, _anything_.

Then they noticed a rhythm.

“Do it again, Daniel.” Jack stood. “I didn’t catch that.”

Daniel tapped the wall five times: in a diamond shape with one far below, a tail. Jack, like he was programmed to do it, followed his friend’s knocks and traced a shape.

_Connect the dots. That must be how they designed new ‘words.’ _

“Stars,” Jack whispered. Louder, “You’re right, Daniel. The flowers do look like stars!”

Daniel’s eyes were now on the ceiling. Instinctively, Janet and Sam looked up.

Jack, however, pulled his friend into a fierce hug. Daniel didn’t hug back but his nose rested in the soft fabric of Jack’s hoodie. “We’ll see them again, Daniel. I promise. I _promise_. I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you that night. So sorry…”

“It’s not your fault, sir,” Sam quavered at him.

“The night we lost you guys and were ambushed, we were dragged on our backs. All we could see were the stars. I promised Daniel…we’d live to see Earth’s stars…I promised. It’s the last thing I said before the muzzles were put on. The last time I saw him…”

Everyone else in the room might have been close to tears, but Janet lit up like Christmas morning. Her breathless cry of excitement brought their eyes to her.

Sam frowned. “Janet?”

“Don’t you see?”

They stared.

“He remembered!” Janet squeezed Daniel’s taut shoulder. “His memories are intact. Not only that—he _asked for something_.”

* * *

That quick scene in the hospital room sparked the SGC to life. SG teams recounted the story in hushed, excited whispers. Psychologists were re-consulted. Spirits were high. 

While Daniel still didn’t respond to basic questions, his face expressed a tiny bit more than it had. Sam could finally read under that big brain’s hood. At least some of the time.

With a successful first run, Daniel and Jack were moved to separate rooms. They still knocked on the wall to each other.

Jack still had a telepathic read on Daniel, even when floors separated them. Once, Jack stopped a conversation with Sam mid-sentence and ran to the elevator.

When she’d followed him down, they found Daniel sitting in his closet, bleeding. The stitches had reopened. He didn’t seem to notice the pain at all. Sam, shocked, had stared at O’Neill while calling for Janet.

Yet now they had a shiny new tool:

Hope.

It made Walter greet Daniel in the hallways, the other SG teams go off world with fresh enthusiasm. Because of it Teal’c resumed his Star Wars marathon with Jack.

It started Sam’s argument with Hammond.

Three days after the incident, this was the last place she ever expected to be.

“I said it before and I’ll say it again, Major. I can’t approve something so drastic when he’s still unstable.”

Carter stood before General Hammond’s desk, one hand on her hip. The other gestured in the air.

“Sir, with all due respect, I disagree. Colonel O’Neill is better than ever. His physical therapy is almost over. Daniel can walk about on his own. He’s stronger.”

Hammond sighed and leaned back in his chair. Sam jumped in.

“He asked for something, General. _Daniel_. Our Daniel. He _asked_ for something! How can we refuse that?”

“Did he say he wanted this specifically?”

“That’s not fair, sir. You know he’s won’t make a sound.”

“Did he write it down?” Hammond pressed.

“Well, no.”

“Then I can’t stand behind your assumption.”

“He sort of…drew it…on the infirmary wall.”

Hammond’s eyes clouded. “Daniel could simply have been remembering Jack’s words. What you saw might even have been an expression of grief. Pain at the night of their capture. What if this hurts him more? Brings it all back?”

“Sir.” Sam’s hard voice cracked. “I don’t think he ever left.”

A nuclear shell of silence stifled both for a minute.

Hammond shook his head. “It doesn’t feel like Doctor Jackson came home at all, does it?”

“We can’t just leave him,” Sam whispered. “If this could garner even a sliver of reaction from Daniel, don’t we have the responsibility to try?”

Hammond’s head lowered while he thought. Sam’s lips firmed. She’d said her piece. But she wasn’t leaving this office until she had his agreement. She’d set up a tent if she had to.

“They come right back here in the morning.”

Sam let our her breath in a whooshing sound. Like an activated gate. “Yes, sir. At 0800 sharp.”

“And Doctor Fraiser stays with them.”

“I was planning to invite her anyway, sir.”

Hammond nodded and Sam knew she’d won. She read the anxiety in his eyes because she saw it every morning in the mirror.

“You know, sir, you could come too. We’d be happy to have you.”

Hammond smiled. “Maybe another time. Take some pictures for me.”

“Teal’c bought a shiny new Canon yesterday.”

Hammond’s chuckling followed Sam out the door.


	3. Chapter 3

“Ah! Home sweet home!” Jack stopped on the threshold of his house and inhaled a giant whiff. He glanced around. “Granted, it would feel _more_ like home if there weren’t, you know, two women and an alien squatting in my house.”

Sam knew better than to feel offended. She smirked. “And if you were staying here longer than a night.”

“That too. I knew I’d forgotten something.”

The others were out unloading the trunk (why Janet brought an _oxygen filtration pump_ with her gear was beyond Sam) and giving Jack time to settle in. To let the concept of _home_ settle in.

Jack fell into an unusual level of quiet. He stood there for a long moment and Sam wouldn’t break it for her life.

When he finally did move, it was for the last thing Sam expected.

Jack marched to his sink across the kitchen, grabbed a glass from the overhead cupboard, and filled it so full Sam thought water would splash onto the floor.

This wasn’t exactly unexpected, of course. People often had a glass of water after a long day.

It was more the fact that Jack wouldn’t _drink_ the water. He just stared at it, like he’d bagged a prize salmon.

Something flitted across his face, a palpable slither. The glass in his hand began to shake. Water sloshed down his fingers.

Loathe to surprise him, Sam approached with measured steps. Her voice, soft, entreated him. “Sir?”

Jack didn’t respond. Just stared at the glass.

“Sir? You’re at your house, with us and Janet.”

Nothing.

She saw no other option. Her hand covered his.

Jack startled to life and would have dropped the glass if it weren’t for Sam’s quick rescue. “Sorry about that, Carter. Sometimes I forget I can just…er…bring it up to my face. It feels…”

He didn’t finish this thought because he didn’t need to. Sam patted his shoulder before debating what to do with the glass.

Jack caught her eye and the shadows fled from his face. He grabbed the glass from Sam. She smiled, watching him down it in one go.

“There,” said Jack. “Now we’re cooking.”

In a sudden flash, his eyes lit up.

Sam must have looked confused because he clarified. “Daniel’s coming.”

Still bewildered after a month that he had such a good homing beacon for the archaeologist, Sam followed him to the door with a shaking head and wry look.

When Teal’c appeared in the doorway—Hawaiian shirt and all—Sam scoffed. Jack’s flawless Daniel meter was finally wrong. 

Then Daniel ducked in around the Jaffa’s burly shoulders. Jack beamed at the man liked he hadn’t just driven twenty minutes in the car with him.

Teal’c smiled at his silent friend. “Thank you for your assistance, Daniel Jackson.”

Daniel planted himself in the foyer, holding Teal’c’s beloved carpet bag that made him look like Mary Poppins. Dark, UV resistant sunglasses hid his iris-blue eyes.

“Daniel?” Jack gently removed the sunglasses and put them in his own pocket. Teal’c pried the carpet bag from Daniel’s hand, though he didn’t seem to notice. “You recognize any of this?”

The desperation with which Jack searched Daniel’s blank face sank a boulder in Sam’s gut.

Daniel did nothing.

Masking a sigh of disappointment with a rub of his hands, Jack turned to Sam. “You bring the steaks?”

She held up a cooler. “Six pounds of prime cut beef, sir. I also brought some cashew salad and lemonade.”

“Excellent! We have exactly fourteen blissful hours of freedom before Napoleon here incarcerates us again so let’s get to ‘er.”

Janet rolled her eyes and set up camp in the living room. Teal’c wandered out to the patio, flashing his camera at everything. Sam watched him through the glass doors.

The snap of latex gloves drew her attention to Janet rummaging around in a black medic bag.

“Daniel?” Janet prompted.

His thousand yard stare at the floor didn’t waver.

“Daniel? Please, come sit on the Lazyboy here.”

Fuzzy eyes at last found Janet and padded to his left, for the living room.

“Watch the step,” Sam threw in.

Obedient as a lamb, Daniel’s shoes reached over the lip between the kitchen and living room. He wore a thick fisherman’s sweater, despite the August heat. Anemia and malnutrition had done their number and his body still wasn’t back online.

Technically even the steaks were not kosher his recovery schedule but Janet had looked the other way, just this once. One night of rich food wouldn’t hurt.

Wouldn’t hurt Jack, anyway.

Daniel’s hesitation to eat was another matter. Unless they ordered him to, he didn’t take initiative on that one.

Sam wiped her tears while folding out the couch. Jack had offered the spare bedroom but the view from his living room windows was too spectacular to pass up. She and Janet would share out here, Jack would sleep in his own bed, with Daniel in the spare. Teal’c…no one was sure what Teal’c planned to do for the night.

With a slight pressure on Daniel’s shoulder, Janet got him seated. She lifted up his shirt and fussed over the healing gash across the right side of his ribs.

They had taken the stitches out last week and the petite doctor was religiously checking for infection. She cleaned it out now, going over it with antiseptic wipes.

Goose flesh erupted on Daniel’s skin but he didn’t make a sound or gesture.

“There,” said Janet, patting his shirt down. “You give new meaning to the word ‘patient,’ Daniel. You could teach Jack a thing or two.”

Sam snickered. She smoothed pillows into place.

“Danny boy?” Jack poked his head through the sliding doors. “If Doc’s done with you I’d like a hand stacking firewood.”

Janet sucked in a breath. “Colonel, I don’t know if the exertion is a wise idea.”

“Let them go,” Sam whispered with a hand on her friend’s arm. Daniel followed Jack onto the patio. “O’Neill won’t let him exert himself more than he can handle.”

Releasing her air in a rush, Janet shook her head. “I’m being paranoid, aren’t I.” It wasn’t a question.

“You’re not here as a doctor, not tonight. Just this once—take a holiday with us. God knows we need it.”

“Whatever really happened on that planet is locked up with Daniel’s voice. I’m just so worried about him.”

Sam’s throat tightened. “Me too.”

Without a word, the two women drew close for a quick hug.

A buttery warm smile spread over Sam’s features and she relished the feeling of her cozy tank top and jeans. Not a uniform in sight. Even Janet had been convinced to wear a sundress instead of her lab coat.

When they finished setting up the bed, Sam opened the patio door to see that “stacking firewood” really meant Jack was teaching Daniel how to make a wigwam bonfire. Daniel crouched next to him, holding a long lighter.

Jack, on his hands and knees, squinted into the bowels of their pyre with a wad of newspaper in hand.

“This is kindling, Daniel, you see? That gets the blaze going. The logs keep it burning over time.”

Daniel didn’t react. He seemed more interested in watching Jack’s facial expressions than the bonfire. That had to count for something.

Sam folded her arms next to Teal’c, who manned the barbeque. Both stifled smiles. The clink of cutlery signaled Janet setting the table behind them.

“Doesn’t Daniel already know how to do this?” Sam whispered to Teal’c. “He grew up in rural Egypt after all.”

The Jaffa snapped a quick photo. “That is irrelevant. O’Neill is enjoying the chance to interact with Daniel Jackson.”

Sam’s grin widened.

“You ready to do the honours?” Jack nudged Daniel. “This is your cue, maestro.”

Daniel continued to stare at Jack’s face.

“Daniel? Helloooo…”

No reaction.

People called Jack impatient, hot tempered, cursed with an intolerable fuse. He was your classic military ops, hard headed and lone wolf ready for anything. Soft hands and a distracted mind were quickly quelled under his brass leadership.

These stereotypes circled Jack wherever he went like planetary rings.

Jack blasted every last one out of the water in an instant—

He smiled, fond, and tapped Daniel’s hands. “Light ‘er up, Danny. You’re doing great.”

Daniel looked down at the lighter in his hands, then at Jack. At some point, Jack had retrieved the man’s glasses and they glinted while his head swung back and forth.

“Oh! You click the trigger button, Daniel. Down by your hand, see?”

Daniel offered the lighter to Jack.

“You’ve got to stop doing that. No, _you_ light the kindling.”

Jack took Daniel’s hand in both of his and guided it to the newspaper. His eyes shone despite the game face. He was having a ball. “Now press the button.”

Daniel hesitated. He licked his lips with a stiff jaw. Then…

‘Click!’

He held the lighter to the newspaper until it crackled into a feast of flames.

“Pro work, Danny!” Jack pulled him under his arm. For a moment his eyes flared with heat that had nothing to do with the fire. Sam could have sworn they were tears. “We should have done bonfires years ago.”

Sam raised her hand. “Sir. Our missions?”

“I mean on _Earth_, Carter. When we’re not being hunted by angry locals.”

“Gotcha, sir.”

“O’Neill. Our steaks are completed to satisfaction.”

“Medium, Big T? Little pink in the middle?”

Teal’c raised a brow.

“Right,” said Jack hastily. “I’m sure they’re perfect.”

The five gathered around the bonfire and for a long while there was only the chatter of friends and clinking of plates. Janet regaled them with med school mishaps, Sam the time she squirted her professor’s face with motorcycle oil, and Teal’c the first time he went to a grocery store.

That one had Sam snickering into her lemonade.

“You accompanied me on that trip, Samantha Carter.”

“Yeah.” She leaned back in her chair. “But hearing you tell it is a whole other experience.”

This fizzled another round of laughter. Janet’s nose wrinkled while she giggled and tried not to choke on her wine.

“You have to taunt me,” Jack teased. “We’re on a monk’s diet.”

Janet pointed at him. “Hey. I let you have steak. That breaks every dietician’s rule on the planet. Don’t push it. I’m gracious, really.”

“Oh yeah.” Jack’s brows climbed. “So generous.”

Janet threw a cashew at him. Before it got within three inches of the colonel’s face, Teal’c snatched it out of the air. Janet laughed while the Jaffa ate it.

“Danny?” In the happy commotion, Jack had taken the opportunity to turn to his friend. “That’s a nice steak you’ve taken three whole bites out of.”

Daniel stared placidly at it.

“You’re starting look like a telephone pole. Eat some more, bud.”

So Daniel did. It was slow going, but he chewed away.

Sometimes, late at night, Sam watched Daniel from the door of his room, his unblinking stare at the opposite wall, and wished he’d talk, wished his mouth would start up and never stop. She longed for his lectures on ancient texts, his under-the-breath mutters. The way he could wax on for an hour but silence a snarky colonel with one sassy comeback.

Sam watched him now with a shuttered gaze.

It widened, however, when Daniel set his plate down on his knees, eyes clouded, and poked Jack’s stomach.

Forks clattered to plates. Teal’c leaned forward. Janet gasped and only Sam’s grip on her arm kept her in her lawn chair.

Daniel was an automaton—doing _anything_ by his own initiative had happened maybe three times their month back. Especially touch.

Jack recovered from his shock a beat later.

“Easy, Danny boy. I’ve eaten. I’m good.”

Daniel searched Jack’s face a moment longer, long enough for Jack’s worry to broadcast to the whole circle.

“What are you thinking in there?” Jack nuzzled Daniel’s hair with his knuckles. His hand opened and spread over the bowed head. “Hmm? What are you trying to ask me?”

In reply, Daniel poked him again. Then his hand whipped back and he shut down.

Nobody breathed for a minute. Sam got the full brunt of Jack’s wounded, open expression when it landed on her.

“What was that?”

“Maybe he’s just not used to this kind of food,” Sam offered. It sounded lame even to her ears.

“My jaw _is_ sore,” Jack admitted. “All this chewing. Imagine that.”

Janet tensed, not so much that her patient was in pain but that he was admitting it. She dug in her pockets.

Their saviour from this despairing spiral turned out to be Teal’c. He pointed to Jack’s roof. “Night is falling, O’Neill.”

“I’ll clean up inside, Colonel.” Janet handed Jack a Naproxen and began gathering the plates. “Heights aren’t really my thing anyway.”

“I shall assist you, Doctor Fraiser.”

“Thank you, Teal’c. Did I ever tell you about the time I treated a guy with a tattoo on his forehead, like yours? Only he was an inmate so his was much less polite…”

“You have not, Doctor. I would be delighted to hear the tale.”

Their voices faded inside. Sam pretended to tend the dying fire to give Jack and Daniel some semblance of privacy.

“The stars are coming out, Danny. It’s time for the main show. A promise is a promise and I don’t break my word.”

Jack stood, Daniel following him like a faithful shadow, and held out his hand when they got to the ladder.

“You going to be steady, Daniel? The rungs are narrow.”

“I’ve got his six,” said Sam. “I won’t let him fall.”

Jack smiled at her. “Thanks, Carter. Up we go, campers!”

At first, Daniel looked confused about what to do with his hands. Then he watched Jack’s leather jacket until it disappeared over the lip of the rooftop balcony. Tentative, he reached out and grabbed a rung. Though to Sam it looked like a determined breeze could knock Daniel over, his grip held firm. Sam supported his legs until he ascended a bit, just to be sure.

“That’s it, Daniel,” she coached. “You’ve done this dozens of times with O’Neill.”

Daniel paused at that. He glanced down. Something in his eyes burned and Sam lost her breath.

Mackenzie would have a field day if he realized that single look destroyed all his pompous theories.

_Where are you, Daniel? What did they take from you? _

The answer hit Sam like a brick: it wasn’t what they’d taken. It was what that monster’s laboratory had given Daniel.

Fear. Mistrust. Defeat.

She’d read it all in his eyes.

Daniel shimmied the rest of the way up without incident. Jack had set up deck chairs and ottomans and Sam stole one by Jack.

“Have a seat, Danny.”

Daniel chose a wicker rocker close to the ladder.

“There’s Polaris,” said Sam. “See that bright magenta one, Daniel? That’s actually Saturn. Only certain times of the year let one see it with the naked eye.”

She kept up the low commentary while Jack fiddled with the telescope dials. He peered through it, grunted, and adjusted again.

“Here, Carter. You’re the expert. Does that look calibrated correctly to you?”

Sam leaned forward to squint through the view scope. A cross section of Orion’s stars zoomed into view, all icy blues and greens. Sam grinned.

“It’s perfect, sir.”

Jack fell abruptly silent. He gazed up at the night sky, enhanced by the lack of neighbours except for the forest, and played with the zipper on his jacket.

Sam sputtered in understanding. “Oh. You don’t need to feel guilty about what happened. The ambush on P4-985 wasn’t your fault. What matters is that you’re here, now, for Daniel.”

Jack nodded. For a moment, Sam’s ears rung. The imagined possibility that _both_ might never speak crushed her.

Then Jack cleared his throat. Sam breathed again.

“I’m still sorry, Daniel. But we’re alright. We made it back and Haines is dead and…”

Jack cut himself off in the tidal wave of some emotion. He squeezed the back of Daniel’s neck, as if the emotion was too strong for his feeble use of words whenever he needed to express something personal.

“Look through it, Daniel. That’s it.”

Daniel bent forward, eyes never leaving Jack’s face. Jack’s hand followed him the whole way. Their archaeologist peered through the scope, then pulled back to compare it to the overhead starscape.

Both Jack and Sam scanned his face, fraught, for some sign or reaction.

Daniel just sat back in his chair, blinking as always.

“I kept my promise, Daniel. To see the stars if everything turned out okay. _When_ everything turned out okay.”

Eyes forward, Daniel continued his statue impression. Jack’s hand dropped from Daniel and something snuffed out in Jack’s eyes.

“Sir.” Sam sighed and tried again. “Sir, maybe this isn’t the best time but I’ve been meaning to tell you…”

“I know, Carter. Hammond is resuming ‘gate operations and you guys finally get to quite your ‘I love my desk job’ routine. Congratulations, Major. You deserve to be back on active duty. Where’s your next mission?” Jack’s downturned mouth wasn’t quite hidden by his collar. “Maybe you can send us a post card.”

Sometimes Sam wanted to throttle her CO. Violently. With fireworks.

“Sir.” He sat up at Sam’s tone. “Hammond and I discussed it at length. Okay, we fought about it. But tonight isn’t just so you can keep your promise to Daniel. It’s kind of a…a celebration.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “A celebration of what?”

Sam leaned forward, elbows on her knees, to make sure she had his full attention. “We have a mission to babysit some scientists in two days.”

“We? _We_, Carter?”

“I’m still lead on this mission, as you’re beginning to eat richer foods and work out at the gym, but it’s going to be an extremely tame and boring twenty four hours off world, perfect for you to reacclimatize—”

Jack roped Sam into a quick embrace. It was over before she got to the fifth syllable. Still, she reeled.

He threw up his hands. “This isn’t a prank. You’re serious.”

“I have Hammond’s orders on my laptop downstairs, sir.”

Jack sat back. “I don’t know how you did it, Carter, but thank you.”

“This is just a trial run, sir. If you faint, that’s it. Hammond won’t let you back through ‘til the leaves change.”

Jack snorted. Which turned into a chuckle. Which blossomed into a guffawing kind of heady laugh that sounded maybe, _possibly_ tearful. Sam pretended not to hear it.

Daniel didn’t turn from gazing ahead.

Then Jack ran a hand through his hair. “As honoured as I am, Carter, tell Hammond I decline.”

“Wh…are you nuts? Sir. Sorry.”

Lines were pronounced around Jack’s eyes. “The prospect is exciting, Carter, don’t get me wrong. I’d love to come. But I…I can’t without Daniel. I can’t leave him on another planet without me there—even if it is Earth—let alone think about going on a mission without him by my side.”

Sam’s cheeks lifted, mouth a melting line of affection. “That’s good. Because Teal’c and I said the same thing.”

Jack whipped around to look her in the eye. “Then why the build up?”

“Colonel—Teal’c and I have turned down _fifteen_ missions since your rescue. When Hammond tried to entice us by letting you come with us on this one, well…we figured you deserved a chance to have your say. Even if we didn’t like the idea.”

Jack said nothing more but this silence was comfortable and full of humour.

Both of them missed the quick, repeated flicker of Daniel’s eyes, back and forth.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

* * *

Leather shoes were traded in for cement ones.

It had been a week since their stargazing evening. It hadn’t had the magic, Hallmark effect on Daniel that Jack expected. Instead, Jack had woken in the middle of the night and panicked until he found Daniel in his bathroom closet, curled up.

“We’re not in that cell anymore!” Jack had practically screamed. “Don’t leave me here!”

Daniel just stared at him.

Something died inside, after that. The less progress they made with Daniel, the flatter Jack’s eyes became. The less reason he saw to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Cement shoes weighed him down.

Full health.

That’s what the report said. Other than some lingering fatigue and the need to build up new muscle mass, Jack read his own report and marvelled at it—_full health_.

What did that even mean? How could he be on the road to “peak condition” if Daniel wasn’t talking to him? Daniel talking was like gravity keeping his feet on the ground when he woke up in the morning.

Jack felt himself floating away…

Airmen greeted Jack in the cafeteria and it took him too long to respond, if he did at all. Sometimes Carter explained something to him and he didn’t really hear her.

Hammond had cleared him to go home, on temporary leave until he was ready to return to active duty, but Jack felt like he’d traded one prison cell for another.

Without Daniel being…Daniel…at his side, Jack couldn’t figure out which way he was supposed to go.

Daniel had _not_ been released and was living in guest quarters on base, under loose observation. Jack kept his residence in the room next to him.

Quite frankly, no one knew how to proceed with Daniel.

His catatonic muteness was something of a psychological anomaly. Among a grand .06% of severe post trauma cases. Some doctors had even asked to write papers citing Daniel as a case study—

To which Frasier swore at them over the phone.

Most people, even traumatized, wanted to communicate in some way. Those that didn’t usually couldn’t perform basic hygiene tasks for themselves either, which Daniel could. Rather efficiently. 

Daniel was…unique in that sense. What else was new?

Hammond approached Jack one day with clenched hands. To anyone else the general was the stoic decision maker. Jack knew better; he saw the encompassing pain behind Hammond’s grimace. Without a word, Jack followed the man into his office and closed the door.

“You can’t live in limbo like this, Jack.”

Jack held onto the doorknob, loathe to let go.

“Doctor Jackson may never get better and you have to accept that.”

“No.” Jack swiveled around. “I don’t.”

“I think you already have.”

Jack swallowed. “That doesn’t mean I know what to do next.”

“Jack—do you want to retire?”

Taken aback by the blunt inquiry, one which he suspected had been burning on Hammond’s tongue for a long time, Jack rocked on his heels. He scrubbed both hands over his eyes and then sat down.

Hammond obviously took his silence for something else. “Because I can give you a full package. Set for the rest of your life in all the luxury you want. You’ve given more than enough for your country and you deserve it.”

“General…”

“Besides, Doctor Jackson will need someone to look after him once he’s back to a healthy weight. He can’t very well live as a catatonic resident here for the rest of his life. Doctor Mackenzie seems to think an asylum would be best but over my dead body is he going there to be put under a microscope.”

Jack floated further away. Up, up, and away…

“Colonel?”

Jack refocused to see Hammond’s concerned eyes.

“Is there an option B?” he asked.

“Active duty, but you’ve made your stance on that clear.”

“I just…I want to be…”

_Wherever Daniel is_, Jack finished mentally. That had been his life, ever since the Abydos mission.

But Daniel’s mind was gone to them. Either fried by Haines’ experiments—unlikely, given that his MRIs and EEGs were completely normal—or too afraid to come back online.

“I’ve never seen you speechless, Jack.”

Jack’s wit and sarcasm had apparently drained in the last week. He had no quippy comeback. For the first time in his life, no clear plan of attack stood before him, no satisfactory options.

“Colonel?” asked Hammond. “Do you want my opinion?”

Jack shrugged.

“If it was me, I’d retire or at least go on vacation. Get away from this facility. Take some time to remember how to be human again.”

_That’s Daniel’s job. He always remembers for me. _

“I’ll think about it, sir.”

Hammond stood, walked around his desk, and squeezed Jack’s shoulder. “We’re rooting for you, son. Never forget that.”

Jack smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

* * *

“Retirement! Can you believe it?” Jack paced Daniel’s small room on base. He sidestepped to avoid the blood pressure machine. “Hammond makes it sound like I’m a defect cow who needs to go out to pasture!”

Daniel sat on the edge of his bed, eyes ahead but following Jack’s agitated steps every so often.

“I know, I know. You’re right.” Jack sighed. “That’s not fair to Hammond. He means well.”

With a snap of his fingers, Jack realized what felt strange in the room.

“Did Siler bring you more books, Danny?” A stack of Tom Clancy novels were untouched on the bedside table. Jack tucked them under his arm.

He leaned towards Daniel and his voice dropped to a conspirator’s tone. “Personally, I think he just loves to watch you read because he didn’t finish high school. Books are like…the Holy Grail for Siler. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

Daniel refused to read.

It was the _only_ command he wouldn’t obey. Again and again plots had been devised to trick Daniel into reading text: motivational posters on his walls, receipts, anything. They’d even left a Spanish Bible on his bed in the hopes a foreign language would confuse him into reading.

Didn’t work.

He resisted it like the plague and none of the psychologists could figure out why.

The archaeologist was a one-man new territory for the mental health field, a walking encyclopedia of firsts.

Daniel’s eyes, without his glasses tonight, seemed larger and more open. Even though they carried no expression, the sight of the baby blues tore at Jack’s soul.

He placed an urgent hand on the nape between Daniel’s shoulder and neck. “You know I care about you, right? I don’t say it very often but I do. Very much. More than I ever realized before this botched fiasco of a mission.”

Daniel blinked a little faster. Other than that, his face didn’t change.

Jack turned away to hide the burn of tears. “Goodnight, Danny.”

He went into the other room and lay on his bed. If the wall hadn’t been there, the two beds would have been squished together. Hand hesitating, Jack summoned his courage and tapped on the concrete.

For the first time ever, Daniel didn’t respond.

The concussive silence brought Jack’s imprisonment rushing back, the lack of sound from Daniel’s neighbouring cell. He’d lied to Daniel that night at the house.

_We never got out at all. We’ve just changed locations._

Jack gave in to the sobs.


	4. Chapter 4

“You can’t do this!” Sam didn’t care if she was hollering.

Doctor Mackenzie stiffened to his full height. “It is for the best, Major.”

“Like bull it is.”

He spluttered. “Major—”

“What happened to formal consent?”

“Doctor Jackson is in no condition to give his assent on anything.”

Janet stepped between them. “Doctors, please keep your voices down or exit my infirmary. It’s late. Patients are sleeping.”

Sam stomped out into the hallway and she was pleased to see Janet follow behind Mackenzie. She shut the infirmary doors.

“He needs this,” Makenzie hissed. “A place with people like him. He’ll be cared for, his condition researched to help him and future generations.”

“He is _not_ a test subject. That was Haines’ crime.” Sam’s forehead throbbed in a brewing headache. “You can’t just waltz in here and sign release papers.”

“What about secondary consent?” Janet asked quietly.

_God bless Janet Fraiser._ Sam held back her grin. Barely.

For the first time, Mackenzie squirmed.

“Well?” Sam bristled. “Who is listed?”

“Technically Colonel O’Neill is, but I argued to Hammond that he’s in no fit state to take care of another human being. Which makes Doctor Jackson property of the United States Air Force.”

“Property? _Property_?!”

“Sam—”

“No, Janet. No. It’s about time someone got angry around here.”

Mackenzie had the grace to look chagrined. But he held his ground. “This is simply a legal matter, Major Carter. It’s nothing personal. If someone’s secondary consent isn’t fit, decisions are made by the state, in this case Doctor Jackson’s employer, the Air Force. Even Hammond had to agree.”

“Can’t we switch it?” Sam asked. “Put my name down. Janet’s. Heck, Hammond would take him too.”

Mackenzie shook his head. “Only the individual can sign a switch in consent. Doctor Jackson won’t read or write text.”

A crashing sound echoed in Sam’s ears. Her spiked blood pressure, she realized. She breathed hard even though none of them were moving.

_He’s right. There’s nothing we can do._

Janet again stepped between Sam and Mackenzie. “Just because decisions are now being made by the Air Force, doesn’t mean that Daniel has to go to the mental hospital with you. General Hammond may make other arrangements.”

“He’s trying.” Mackenzie snorted. Sam never wanted to deck someone so badly. “But it’s a stall tactic. It’s only a matter of time before there’s no other choice. You are off world most days of the week, are you not, Major? Who would have the time to care for a vegetable archaeologist with a former IQ in the triple digits?”

Janet swore under her breath.

“If Doctor Jackson doesn’t speak in the next twenty four hours, I’m taking him,” said Mackenzie. “Personally, I almost hope he doesn’t.”

Sam changed her mind. Just one thing in this day had to go right—

She punched Mackenzie across the nose.

* * *

“General?”

Hammond glanced up from his desk at the voice. “Come in, Sergeant.”

Walter shuffled through the door, his face splotched with ‘gate symbols from light reflecting off the glass star map acting as the far wall. Something about Harriman had always seemed otherworldly, the way he took this job so seriously. Despite the midnight hour, he was wide awake.

“Sir?” Hammond surfaced from his rare moment of fancy to see Walter holding out a manila envelope. “It’s an express package from the Department of Defence.”

Hammond’s breath froze without his permission. He shoved the report he was working on aside and tore open the envelope. Walter sounded just as breathless.

_No…_ Hammond read the very short letter, maybe five sentences, and went white. _It’s too soon. They can’t do this_.

But they could.

“Sir?”

Hammond sighed. “They’re…they’ve…” He took off his reading glasses and then thought better of it. The glare hid his bright eyes. “Doctor Jackson is officially being moved to a care home.”

Walter was silent for a moment. His brows were a storm. “That’s good, isn’t it? At least it isn’t Mackenzie.”

“You heard about that?”

“General, _everyone _heard the ultimatum.”

It was Hammond’s turn to fall quiet. His voice came out like a teenage boy’s asking a girl to prom. Defeated even as it began, hushed. “The care home is only five miles from Area 51. His neural chemistry is of particular study interest. They’re taking him tomorrow afternoon.”

Neither spoke for a minute.

When Hammond finally dared to look up, Walter was the opposite of Hammond, red faced.

“Are we going to let them?”

Walter’s voice carried an edge that would have been insubordinate on any other base in the world. But they were a base in name only, sometimes. The personnel here were closer than coworkers, something bordering on family.

“I don’t have a choice,” said Hammond. Then he realized he owed it to Walter—“I’m sorry.”

Walter took off his own glasses.

The shadow of stargate symbols eclipsed his quivering mouth when he walked away. 

* * *

_“You will die here, just as you lived out your days here. Say goodbye to your friend.” _

_The spear went high. Descended in a flash over a struggling, lanky body. _

_“No! Stop—don’t make me do it. I’m sorry! DANIEL!” _

Screaming. Someone was screaming.

“Daniel!”

Jack bolted upright. His throat ached—

_I’m the one screaming. _

Jack scrubbed his face and cursed. He kept silent most nights. Even Fraiser didn’t know the nightmares had gotten this bad. They were a new thing since returning from their stargazing night and Jack hated that they were more vivid than his ones from Iraq, courtesy of Haines’ mystery neural drug.

_The dream wasn’t real. Just another of Haines’ illusions. _

The creak of Jack’s door made him jump. He made as if to cover himself and then realized he’d fallen asleep fully clothed.

Red crawled up Jack’s neck at the thought someone had heard this rare moment of vulnerability. Then he spied a spiky crop of hair.

Jack let out a breath. “I’m alright, Daniel. Sorry if I woke you.”

Daniel said nothing, of course, but Jack’s first clue of something off was Daniel’s hands.

Stretched out.

The man approached with cautious, awed steps. Jack couldn’t look away from the mesmerizing sight of the hands reaching for him. Daniel crouched in front of Jack, near his sock feet where he’d swung to the side.

The thumbs made contact first. Soft skin brushed over something wet, Jack’s pained mouth and brows.

“They’re scared tears,” Jack whispered to his friend. “It was just a nightmare, Danny. Just an old fashioned nightmare.”

Suddenly Daniel’s hands began to shake where they crawled, frantic and irreverent, over Jack’s face. Long fingers scrabbled for his hair, his ears, the sides of his nose. Jack let him, knuckles white around the mattress.

Distantly, outside of their bubble, Jack was aware of a hallway crowd growing in size at the door.

Jack didn’t glance at them once. With his focus squarely on Daniel, he saw the instant it happened:

The effect was a lightning strike upon Daniel’s face. His features went from blank to shocked, eyes huge, in a flash. Emotions pushed through, so many and so messy that Jack grabbed his shoulders. He wondered if this was a seizure it was such a wild reaction.

“Danny? _Daniel_?”

“Jack?” The word wasn’t even a word. A crackling breath. Jack only recognized his name because of the familiar shape of Daniel’s mouth when he ‘said’ it. “R…Re…”

Daniel strangled a fistful of Jack’s uniform in a breathtaking hold. His chest heaved with panting breaths.

He tried again. “_Real_?”

Jack couldn’t process anything for a good ten seconds because _DanielisspeakingohgoodheavenDanielissactuallytalking_—

Carter, during her captain days, once taught Jack that although lightning never strikes the same place twice, it often strikes nearby.

Daniel’s one word was a strike of power through Jack’s system.

Jack understood everything so fast he almost fell over.

“Daniel, listen to me. This is not a Haines-induced hallucination. Not a dream. We are back at the SGC—for real—safe and being gaped at by real Janet Frasier while _real_ Walter is on a _real_ phone to get Hammond, you hear? Daniel?”

“Oh…” Daniel’s hands went limp and fell from Jack. He crumpled to his knees.

“Whoa! Easy!” Jack got onto the floor and wrapped an arm around Daniel’s chest before he could face plant. “Easy, easy…”

“Jack?”

“Danny?”

“Oh. Oh. I…”

Jack thought, _to Hell with it_, and wrapped his other arm around Daniel too. They were an inverse huddle of nerves and shakes and emotions so strong Jack didn’t have a name for them.

Daniel closed his eyes and a single tear trickled out.

In that moment, there wasn’t a person or object below Cheyenne Mountain possessing as much authority as that one tear.

Everyone erupted into a fountain of sound. Sam and Janet galvanized to life. Jack thought he heard Siler crying. Nurses scurried around them while someone shouted for Mackenzie.

Daniel’s voice was a reed in a windstorm but Jack bent to hear him anyway. He didn’t care if Daniel was lecturing about basket weaving or Jello—he was a captivated audience.

“…Saw you…dead.”

“It wasn’t real,” Jack whispered in his ear.

“No more…kn…knocking,” Daniel rasped. “Thought…you…dead.”

Jack closed his eyes too. “I got too weak by the end of it. I’m sorry I left you alone, Daniel. So sorry.”

“Taunting.”

Jack frowned. That one he didn’t understand.

“Taunting?”

“Reunion,” said Daniel. “Taunting me.”

Jack wrestled Daniel into a tighter hug, if it were possible. “You thought this was all just some vision or me in paradise—I really hope Heaven doesn’t look like a windowless concrete military base, by the way.”

“Nightmare…”

Jack nodded. “But a nightmare would never be something dead…er, _ideal_ me suffers from. You thought Haines made all this up to gloat at you. Even the reunion in the hallway that time. It was supposedly a…a false experience you couldn’t actually have because I was dead.”

Daniel just nodded.

_And Daniel obviously assumed, with the muzzle, he’d get a shock if he spoke. Because he was still in that cell. Thinking the vision of me dying was real._

Jack put a hand over his mouth and his tears joined Daniel’s on the ground. When no one was looking, Jack cupped the side of Daniel’s face and kissed his temple.

“Welcome home, Daniel.”

His best friend smiled. His first smile.

Everyone not off running around rushed forward in the dog pile hug of the century. Hands patted their heads and clapped their backs and Jack thought of the day Daniel had said goodbye to the Abydonian people.

He could get used to this.

“Missed you, J-Jack.”

Jack buried his nose in the sandy hair.

Thirty nine days after their rescue, Daniel spoke.

* * *

“What does that one say?”

Daniel’s brow furrowed but he dutifully brought the menu closer to his glasses. “Pulled pork.”

“And that one?”

“Er, dill pickle.”

The watery line of Sam’s mouth rose another inch. And if she had to swipe her eyes on her hem, well, they pretended not to notice. It wasn’t Shakespeare but every scratchy word out of Daniel’s mouth was a symphony. Day by day his feeble, underused vocal chords grew in strength.

Jack frowned at his own menu, feet propped on the edge of Daniel’s chair. “They make dill pickle poutine?”

“I will never understand why you brought us to a diner that only serves one item, O’Neill.” Teal’c folded his huge hands on the red gingham table cloth.

“It’s poutine!” Jack said, waving his arm like that explained everything. It should have. Poutine!

“They have over twenty five flavours of poutine so it’s not just _one _item. But dill pickle is weird,” he amended. “I’ll give you that, T.”

Daniel glanced up. “What are you getting, Sam?”

Sam had forgone her menu to make Daniel read everything off it. She reclined with a contented hum. “Bacon and Havarti poutine for me.”

“Good choice.” Jack nudged Daniel’s elbow. “What about you?”

“Did you really break Mackenzie’s nose?” Daniel asked Sam abruptly.

This was a tic that overseas therapists assured Jack their linguist would outgrow—for once, something _normal_ in cases like this. Sensory Processing Disorder, they called it.

Trauma and Haines’ chemicals had messed with Daniel’s processing of sensory input. His brain had trouble distinguishing fresh, incoming information from stored information and sometimes, like a narcoleptic, missed beats in everyday life.

He’d clearly missed Jack’s question.

Sam caught Jack’s eye and nodded to Daniel. “You should have seen the blood. Janet had to mop the floor after she stitched his nose.”

“But why did you punch him?” Daniel insisted.

Sam bit her lip. “Mackenzie was…selfish. No way was I letting you out of my sight, let’s put it that way.”

Teal’c beamed and Sam didn’t look one ounce remorseful about it all. The Jaffa fist bumped her across the table.

“Excellent work, Samantha Carter.”

“Thank you, Teal’c.”

“So, Daniel. What are you getting?” Jack asked, like it was his first time saying it.

Daniel looked down at his menu. “I still can’t believe Janet released me from observation. Finally.”

“Yeah,” said Sam. She sucked in a worried breath. “That’s why we’re here at this poutine joint celebrating. Remember, Daniel?”

“Of course I do! I just can’t believe it. It’s only been a week since I—”

“Yoohoo.” Jack waved a hand in front of Daniel’s face. “I gotta go up and place our order. They’re working on Sam’s and Teal’c’s.”

“Oh! I’ll have the buttered chicken poutine.”

“Ew.” Jack swatted his shoulder. “You would.”

And if Jack’s hand lingered for a second when he stood up, kneading into Daniel’s shirt to reassure himself, well, they pretended not to notice.

“Was that a rhododendron outside?” Jack heard Daniel ask as he wandered up to the order window. He grinned to himself.

“Yes.” Carter paused. “Why?”

“Oh, see, I think my parents had those at their funeral.”

“They are a most beautiful flower, Daniel Jackson. Appropriate for beautiful lives.” Teal’c and his rumbling voice diffused Sam’s confusion. Jack started.

_When did I learn to read my teammates without even seeing them? _Jack didn’t want to think too much into that one.

Jack placed his order and leaned on the counter, tilted to face his people.

Daniel’s eyes sparkled with life. Though often baffled by the SGC’s enthusiasm for simple things he did everyday—just this morning Siler had poked his head in to watch the archaeologist hum a tune he’d heard on the radio while writing a report—his cheeks were pink with energy. 

_Now _that’s_ what ‘full health’ looks like. _

Mackenzie’s gobsmacked expression when he’d run into Jack’s quarters with Hammond that night was a delicious, cherished memory in Jack’s mind: Daniel had glanced up from his kneel on the floor, blinked, and rasped, “salut—hola—namaste—I mean, hello.”

Hammond had laughed so hard he cried.

Daniel still had his three-digit IQ, even if he had to relearn how to drive it. Sometimes he started off muttering in Russian or Gaelic before Jack corrected him.

“Here you go, sweetie.”

Jack turned to see the cook holding out four baskets of poutine. Steam fogged the counter top. A shiver of warmth worked its way down to Jack’s toes.

“Thank you kindly.” Jack thumbed a few bills into the woman’s hand and balanced their dinner tray with the other.

Halfway back to their table, Jack paused. He scowled at the tray. “Okay. Teal’c, please tell me you didn’t order the dill pickle.”

Teal’c’s face was otherwise impassive, but he cocked his head. Daniel snickered into his fist.

“I had to try this most salty and beloved delicacy, O’Neill. We do not have pickles on Chulak.”

“I swear you do this just to spite me.”

Now Carter was ‘coughing’ along with Daniel.

“I have no idea to what you are referring, O’Neill.”

“Uh-huh. Keep it up, old fella.”

“Old?” Teal’c popped a pickle covered fry in his mouth. “Are you not the one with the greyest hairs?”

Daniel wasn’t even attempting to hide it now. He had to take off his glasses when they fogged. His husky, almost soundless laughter warred with the downturn of Jack’s lips.

“You have no hairs at all!” The waver in Jack’s voice gave him away.

He imagined this laughter was what Daniel sounded like as a child, not the barks of cynicism they were used to hearing.

“‘He who has fewer locks has fewer woes.’ A wise Chulak saying.”

“You just made that up!”

“Do you have proof of that, O’Neill?”

“What? No! Daniel, help me out here.”

Daniel was too far gone to do anything but wipe his eyes and hold his sides. Carter leaned on his arm, sounding akin to a beached whale.

The sight of their mirth fizzed up Jack’s chest and for some reason he couldn’t control it.

All four were off laughing and giggling and generally drawing the curious eyes of other patrons. Even Teal’c’s chest went in and out in canon-fire-deep chuckling.

Their laughter was not so much in amusement but in release. In _relief_. It was wild and unbridled. There was nothing to do but ride it out.

“Did…do you know cats were worshiped in…_oh_…in ancient Egypt?” Daniel blurted around laughs.

The tic set a red faced Sam off even more. She couldn’t speak.

“I do know that,” said Teal’c. “Apophis named one O’Neill and used it to scare prisoners.”

Jack threw a soggy French fry at Teal’c. He simply popped it in his mouth and winked at Jack.


	5. Chapter 5

“Hey.” Jack’s racing heart matched his hurried steps. They paused when he came up the control room stairs. He clapped Walter’s shoulder. “Thank God. I’ve been looking everywhere. Has he been here the whole time?”

The infant of a broad smile began on Walter’s face. “Four hours uninterrupted. Ask the airmen who tried to come in. They’re getting Band-Aids from Frasier.”

Jack cast Walter a genuinely aghast look. He pitied anyone who crossed a protective Walter Harriman. He gave new meaning to small but mighty.

Walter kept his eyes on a tiny blob leaning against the stargate, curled into a lax bundle and dead to the world.

“Did he sign out for the night?” Walter asked.

“No. That’s why I went to find him. He’s working his butt off translating SG-2’s new findings.”

Walter nodded. “Trying to prove…”

They sighed in unison.

“Thanks again.”

“Anytime, Colonel. I mean it—he’s done this before. I’m sure this won’t be the last.”

Jack hopped down the side steps and into the gate room, turning to give Walter a thumbs up. Walter waved back.

Suddenly Jack was thankful it was two thirty in the morning. They seemed to be the only three souls alive. It settled Jack’s addled thoughts—intrusive images about what he’d find or how P4-985 had all been his fault.

Jack kept his footfalls quiet. His jaw rigid, he clenched and unclenched his fists.

The moment he laid eyes on Daniel’s vulnerable, sleeping face, however, Jack whimpered in compassion and his brows spread apart.

He knelt in front of Daniel.

The man had removed his glasses at some point. Long lashes rested on dots of colour in his milky skin and his mouth was slightly ajar, allowing soft breaths to puff in and out. Behind his knees, the sweater’s too-long sleeves hid spindly fingers.

Jack placed a reverent hand on Daniel’s hair. He petted front to back. The unruly hair flared up even more and tickled symbols low on the ‘gate.

For a moment nothing else existed: Jack’s hand smoothed the young man’s head. The ‘gate’s energy whirred under their shoes.

“There’s my space monkey.” With his back to the control room window—and any security cameras—Jack didn’t censor the dopey grin on his face.

Daniel shifted. His left shoe slid outwards, pressing gently into Jack’s ankle. Jack clasped it.

“What are you doing in here, big guy? Hmm?”

Daniel blinked up at Jack for a moment, like a trusting child, and then shrugged. He licked the sleep from his mouth. “Had a tough phrase to interpret. The ‘gate helps me think.”

“I meant why didn’t you go home? Back to your apartment?”

It had been five weeks since the poutine outing. Daniel had been deemed ready to live on his own for two of those. His voice was normal, acuity perfect. He’d passed the driving test with flawless accuracy. The drug was flushed from his system. Hammond had him doing paper work and translating with more efficiency than ever.

Now if only he’d stop wandering off like this…

Daniel didn’t reply but this time Jack saw his mind working behind the expressive eyes. Jack remained silent.

His hand petted the ankle instead, a motion that calmed Jack. Contact was a million dollar luxury.

_I’ll never take it for granted again._

“Did you know the human brain can’t read in a dream?” said Daniel.

Jack’s hold on the ankle tightened. He searched Daniel’s eyes for usual lapse symptoms, the flared nostrils, foggy speech, and the trouble making eye contact. He hadn’t had a “fun fact” episode, as Carter called them, since that time he cut himself in Jack’s kitchen…

The words caught up with Jack.

In an instant, he sobered.

“Oh, Daniel…”

Daniel hid his face in his chest. Jack wasn’t having any of that. He leaned forward and his hand went back to the hair.

“Haines didn’t just make me see you die.” Daniel’s swallow was an audible moan in his throat. “He made me think _I _did it. The stone blade in my hand. I thought…I thought…”

“_Danny_.”

Daniel plowed right over him. “All of Siler’s books, I…I didn’t want to fail to read them, to be stung by the fact Haines was just messing with me. Or even if this _was_ real, I didn’t think I deserved it.”

“What?” Jack swung back. He hadn’t expected that, not in a thousand years.

“_I’m _the one who drew them to our position in the bushes.”

“Daniel. That was _not _your fault. They had slingshots and a rock hit you in the head. I would have yelped too.”

Daniel looked away, eyes stubborn.

A profound sense of vertigo enveloped Jack. His pulse hammered. He suddenly knew, without a sliver of doubt, that if he didn’t convince Daniel now, he’d lose something inside his best friend for good.

Jack caught Daniel’s chin and lifted it. “Haines was the real murderer, Daniel. Whatever he said to you during those experiments, whatever atrocities he made you think you did—your worth is still the same, Daniel. You didn’t lose hope.”

“Yes I did!” Daniel tried to pull away. Jack held him.

“No. The fact you’re here, that you still have faith in us, proves you didn’t.”

Something in Daniel’s eyes shivered. “Do you know how many times…how many hallucinations were here, in the SGC? How many times I thought I was rescued, only to wake up in that cell?”

Jack did know. He asked anyway. “How many?”

“All of them,” Daniel whispered.

They breathed. Jack palmed Daniel’s hair. Daniel gripped Jack’s shoulder. It felt normal, this heavy calm.

“Most of them ended with me…with you dying somehow.”

Jack clasped the fingers in his shirt. “Still real, Daniel.”

“We’re fractured,” said Daniel. “Aren’t we?”

Jack stilled. He really stopped to look at Daniel. A grin to rival Walter’s slicked over Jack’s features.

“What else is new? You teach everyone around you to be human, Danny. Even me. Even when you wouldn’t talk. It’s like you can’t help yourself, can’t stop shining or something. We’re all alight because of it.”

“Like stained glass. Fractured but beautiful.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed, fond. “Stained glass. Sure. Whatever you say, Gandhi.”

The lines in Daniel’s forehead slackened.

“Now you can’t stop reading,” Jack teased.

Daniel smiled, his first genuine one in days. “Yeah. I keep relishing in the fact this is real. Haines couldn’t get around the no-reading effect in a dream. It was probably the one flaw in his chemical. Everything else was so real.”

Jack held out a hand. “How about a real bed then?”

“I’m not done translating!” Daniel rode the grip to his feet anyway.

“We need you fresh for the morning.”

“It is morning, Jack.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Fine. We need you fresh for _later_ this morning. 0700. Can’t be late to digging for agate samples. So much fun!”

Daniel lit up at Jack’s sarcasm. This was their very first mission in over three months. He waved to Walter at the window and the sergeant technician tapped on the glass in reply.

Daniel and Jack froze. They blinked at the window, then at each other. Both had mentally decoded the taps without even thinking.

“You kept me alive you know,” Jack murmured. “The knocking, the proof you were there.”

“The feeling is mutual.” Daniel’s half smile dripped with pain and hope and security.

_You teach me how to be human every day, Danny. Let us return the favour for a while. _

“I almost forgot!” Jack dug in his pockets. “I made this for you.”

He withdrew a quadruple folded sheet of printer paper and handed it to Daniel. Daniel threw him a questioning look and then retrieved the glasses from his pocket to read it.

His brows shot up. “Jack? Do mine eyes deceive me? Is this your granny’s secret muffin recipe?”

“Keep reading, Tonto.”

Daniel did. His eyes darted back and forth and soon filled with a shallow line of water.

“You’re holding everything I wanted to say in the cell,” said Jack. “I made a mental list of what I would say if we were going to die there, everything I’d want you to know. Last night I finally got the chance to write it out.”

The page was covered in blue ink. Jack had made sure to use up every last inch of space, like a manifesto. He supposed it was. A manifesto of things he only trusted Daniel to know.

Daniel’s laugh was wet yet lighthearted. “It’s so random. From ‘you remind me of my son,’ heartfelt, to ‘I always wear mismatching socks. Don’t tell Hammond.’”

“See! Not even Haines—or your brain—could make that one up. Now you can take it out and look at it if you ever get confused.”

“Thanks, Jack. I didn’t make out a list but…”

“I think I already know what it would say. Me and my socks are always here for you, Danny.”

Daniel laughed again.

* * *

“I’m putting it on your grave, language boy.”

“Ha, ha. Very funny.”

“‘Just one more book, Jack.’ In big, carved letters. Carter, be my witness.”

She looked up from clipping on her rifle, bewildered. “Witness of what?”

“Is no one listening to me today?”

“Did you say something, O’Neill?”

Jack threw up his hands and ignored the trio’s smug grins. They stood in the gate room and the coordinates were already dialed. Walter declared the last of them while Jack huffed at Daniel kneeling on the floor. The backpack’s seams were going to rip, Jack swore.

“Agate isn’t even your specialty, Gandhi. Why all the reading material?”

“It’s just one more book, Jack.” Daniel wrestled with a softcover on Mesopotamia. It wouldn’t squeeze into the last cubic _millimeters _of space left. “Maybe I can take these protein bars out…”

“Daniel!”

“What?”

“No. Protein bars are—”

“Secondary.”

“I was going to say _essential_. Are we going to Mesopotamia?”

“Well, no. But—”

“Gentleman, Lady.” Hammond marched into the gate room. “You have your orders. I expect you back in thirty six hours.”

Jack was having far too much fun arguing with Daniel to respond. He heard Sam thank Hammond and confirm their itinerary. This was basically a tag-along with Carter and her scientific equipment anyway.

“In uppercase letters, Daniel. I’ll even carve your gobsmacked face underneath.”

“That’ll be pretty hard seeing as you’ll be dead.”

“Why?”

“Because over _your_ dead body am I leaving this book behind.”

“Isn’t that a malaphor?”

“I didn’t know you knew a word that big.”

“Hey!”

“And no,” said Daniel. “It’s not a malaphor. I need this book to be…not bored.”

“Do you have my paper?”

Daniel blinked at the change in topic. The ‘gate shimmered off his glasses. “Always. In my pocket. Though I don’t need it if you keep this up. Your grating tones are proof enough I’m home.”

Home.

For one awful, stupid second, Jack thought he would cry tears of joy right there in the gate room.

“Sir,” said Carter, breaking the moment and saving Jack’s mortification. “Just let him take the book. I can even put it in my own pack.”

“Oh no!” Jack followed Teal’c to the event horizon. “You spoil him once and next thing you know he wants ice cream for dinner.”

“Daniel Jackson is allergic to ice cream, O’Neill.”

“Are you _still _making things up? No, Daniel is not allergic to ice cream.”

“Do you really want to test that theory?” Daniel side eyed Jack. “What if I swell up?”

“Then I’ll know exactly what to put on your tombstone.”

SG teams and technicians and anyone else who could find an excuse to be there for the momentous occasion were, by this point, in stitches.

Hammond struggled to be heard over everyone’s laughter and the team’s bantering. “G…_Godspeed_, SG-1. You have a go!”

Applause followed Daniel and then Jack, last, through the horizon.

Thirty nine days after Daniel spoke, SG-1 went on their first mission.

One hundred and eighteen days after Daniel and Jack’s capture—

The SGC was whole.


	6. Deleted Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a deleted scene to explain a couple of incidents and mentioned things. Bon apetit.

There had to be some law in the universe, somewhere, about vegetables.

Or, rather, a law about stereotypes coming true on the _one_ occasion he had someone staying in this bachelor pad. If a bungalow could even be called a bachelor pad.

That stereotype being—

“Jack…there’s just beer in this fridge. And some questionable Havarti cheese at the back.”

“So?” He purposely didn’t meet his friend’s eyes while rummaging in the cupboard for soup pots.

“So how are we going to make this special stew you keeping talking about if you have no vegetables?”

Straightening from his crouch, Jack clapped his hands. He grinned at seeing Daniel, owl eyed, in front of the open refrigerator. A plastic orange patient bracelet still circled his wrist in a crystal clear indication of what an enormous trial run this stay at Jack’s house was.

“You’ve been here for almost two weeks, Danny. Have I let you down in the supper department?”

Daniel scoffed, shoulders bobbing.

“On second thought, don’t answer that. I can hear your mental sarcasm from here.”

“I should put that as a language skill on my next resume.”

Jack’s brows rose. “Daniel. You’re never going to need to show a resume again once the program goes public. As if you’d ever be out of a job.”

“Don’t tempt fate, Jack.”

“When have I ever done such a thing?”

Daniel cheeks puffed—“Ach! Don’t answer that either!”—and then released.

Though Janet called every morning for an update, Daniel’s episodes hadn’t caused any major problems. Sure, he used up all the hot water that time he zoned out for forty minutes in the shower. But Jack could live with cold showers in exchange for seeing his friend so relaxed, mellow.

The close quarters were doing them both good.

Well, that and the fact they were both on “down time,” as Hammond called it.

“It’s not my fault someone fell asleep in the passenger’s seat instead of going in to buy groceries,” said Jack.

Daniel’s cheeks flamed and he shut the fridge door with a slow, controlled whump that was somehow worse than a slam.

Jack sobered. “I’m just teasing you, Danny. Linda picked the veggies up for me when I realized you’d forgotten at the mall.”

“So that’s your grocery secret.” Daniel smiled but wouldn’t quite meet Jack’s eyes. “Wondered how you manage all these house plants when we’re off world.”

“Yup.” Jack smiled too. “Everyone needs a good neighbour.”

Daniel rubbed his eye and suddenly stepped closer. His fingers sought a white, tortoise shell button on Jack’s plaid shirt and turned it back and forth. Jack let him. At least it wasn’t his earlobe like the first night home. Daniel’s brows crinkled as if he studied an artifact instead of a button.

Jack was more concerned about the glazed eyes. “You still having trouble sleeping?”

Daniel didn’t answer.

He couldn’t have nightmares about their captivity, like a normal person.

_Like me_, Jack thought. To his relief, his own nightmares had all but gone away since taking Daniel in.

No, Daniel _wandered_.

Jack would jolt awake in response to some paternal sense only to find Daniel’s bed empty. Frantic searches usually led to finding Daniel standing in the middle of the living room, or crumpled in the grass outside, or that one time he’d tried to fit in the pantry closet.

Each time, Daniel startled out of a cloudy stupor, eyes huge and fearfully confused. Surprised to find himself free of the cell and laboratories.

Sometimes he forgot he was allowed to talk and Jack’s pulse wouldn’t calm until he heard a small, “Jack?” after hours and hours of Jack silently panicking.

“I’m here, Danny,” Jack always replied. “We’re at my house. No test tubes. No Haines.”

Sometimes Daniel _didn’t_ forget and whispered to Jack in Russian, Afrikaans, Hebrew…

“_Abba_,” Daniel once whispered to Jack with a pat on his arm.

Jack swallowed. He hadn’t been called that—in any language—for a very long time.

Even Janet was baffled. Daniel had never been a sleepwalker, but then he’d been given nearly _eight times_ the dose of neural hallucinogen as Jack. The SGC chose to blame it on that and mental stress.

Jack refocused in time to see Daniel rub under his eyes. Again. His glasses smudged.

“Daniel?”

Still no response other than the twirling of the button.

“Come on, bud.” Jack rubbed the hand in his shirt. Slowly, as it always did, physical contact coaxed Daniel out of the sensory fixation. “Can’t make tonight’s stew without my trusty sous chef. Stay with me…”

Daniel blinked at last. The pale lips regained some colour. He glanced around, jolting when he saw his hand on Jack. He tried to pull away, blinking fast, but Jack held the palm to his chest, gently but firmly.

“It’s okay, Daniel. We’re okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not mad.”

Daniel deflated at the eternally magic words. Jack had a sneaking suspicion the fact these words were so comforting had absolutely nothing to do with Haines.

Sometimes Jack wanted to go back in time and strangle Daniel’s foster parents.

Daniel was content to stand there and let his hand be rubbed, apparently. So was Jack.

“Do I need to grab you a chair? Any dizziness?”

“Actually…” Daniel patted at himself with his free hand. “No.”

Jack beamed. “That’s progress!”

“How long was this one?”

“Just a few minutes,” Jack assured him.

Daniel glanced at the soup pot now on the counter and frowned. “There aren’t any veggies for the stew.”

“We just had this conversation. Remember?”

Daniel studied the floor, both hands now on his hips. Then he lifted his head, eyes a squint. Jack’s heart thudded. Daniel seemed to be doing worlds better, but once in a while setbacks like this took everyone off guard.

Then Daniel pointed at Jack. “…Linda?”

“Give the man a door prize!” Jack shook his friend by the shoulders once. “That’s going in the morning report to Janet!”

Daniel rolled his eyes but the effect was dampened by a smirk.

“You’re on stirring duty, my good man.”

Jack handed him a wooden spoon for sautéing the onion, then for stirring the broth mixture. Over the next hour, Daniel chattered away about an old Hitchcock film and its Faustian themes while Jack cooked the beef.

“Wait.” Daniel’s methodical stirring froze. Jack’s heart skipped a beat and he set down his meat tongs, prepared to catch Daniel should he slip to his knees. “Sous chef?”

The replying exhale of relief was hidden by Jack’s quirked brow. “Yeah. That’s what the assistant chef is called in a kitchen. I’m clearly head chef.”

“But…I was lead chef on Abydos that year. _You_ should be sous chef.”

“I have years of experience making food from literally whatever I find lying around.”

“That’s survival cooking. Doesn’t count.”

“And your woolly mammoth specialty does?”

“It’s community. Food is community.”

“Food is survival,” said Jack with a long look.

“My culinary pallet is broader.”

“Oh yeah? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten? Bet it doesn’t beat my squid-dog stew in Japan.”

Daniel threw him back that spark-eyed expression which was uniquely theirs. “Survival _and_ community cooking: Spiced scorpion mixed with the three thousand year old remains of a cat we found in a canopic jar. We were lost in the desert and that’s all we had.”

The sound of metal clattering to marble counter top replaced the swear word Jack wanted to bark out. He hastily retrieved his meat tongs, staring at Daniel.

“It takes a lot to shock me anymore…”

“You’re welcome.”

_Cheeky kid._

“Alright. Lead chef title is officially yours forever.”

Daniel’s chin lifted with his triumphant smile—

Until Jack handed him a slender knife.

“Jack, what—”

“For cutting our veggies. I just have to go down the road to get the rest from Linda. Here.” Jack hauled out a bag of carrots, freshly peeled, from the basement steps. “You chop some root vegetables, _Mister Lead Chef_, while I hunt and gather. Deal?”

Daniel just poked Jack with his elbow and was already slicing the carrots into neat, circular coin shapes. He plopped some into a pot of water boiling on the stove.

With a satisfied nod, Jack beat his retreat. The onset of fall meant darkness settled faster. Streetlights popped on in tandem with Jack’s trek down the pavement. In this secluded section of town, the sound of cars was scarce.

“Jack!” Linda leaned on the steps of her wrap around porch when Jack came around the bend, a grocery bag at her feet. “Good to finally see you!”

“Linda, you doll.” Jack jogged up the steps two at a time and pecked the white haired lady on her cheek. He pressed a twenty in her palm. “I can’t thank you enough for this. Time…slipped away from us yesterday.”

The woman’s wrinkled face softened. “How is your boy?”

A sudden pause overcame Jack. Uncharacteristically lost for words, he only nodded.

“If you need any help with his recovery, _anything_, you call. You hear?”

Jack nodded again. “I’m just glad he’s talking again. Thought I’d lost him for good this time.”

He hadn’t told Linda the full story but she was the kind of grandmotherly lady who would see through a lie anyway. Her eyes glowed yellow in the lantern light hanging over her porch.

“There’s a little something extra in the bag,” she said.

“You didn’t have to do that…”

Linda slapped Jack’s nosy hand away from opening the plastic bag. “It’s for after you’ve eaten.”

Jack only smiled and hugged her again. “You’re too good, Linda.”

“Darn right I am.” Linda winked. “But it’s no trouble, Jack, really. Besides, how many times have you shovelled my driveway? Checked in on me that time I fell?”

“If you were gone who would water my plants?”

Linda threw a sharp retort of laughter at Jack’s retreating back. “Get off my lawn, flyboy!”

Jack saluted and jogged the quarter mile home.

He didn’t realize he’d been holding his shoulders tightly until the inviting orange glow from his screen door framed Daniel, back to the door and bent over the cutting board. He hummed faintly to himself, some Beatles’ song.

Jack said nothing while he got to work beside his friend. He stuck on an _actual_ Beatles’ record and as it began to spin, Daniel hummed along.

The vegetables were cubed in no time and softened while they simmered. Salty scents filled the bungalow, along with a thin haze of steam. Jack warmed soup bowls in the oven. The smell of bread being sliced only made his mouth water more.

Their stew was almost finished and Jack was just flipping the record when he stilled. Something felt…different.

_The humming. _Daniel had stopped humming.

His fingers set the needle down on a new song, just in case.

Nothing.

“Daniel?”

Jack hopped the lip from his living room into the kitchen. Daniel still stood at the cutting board.

“Jack,” said Daniel, eyes on the knife in his hand. “Do you think those are real bird sounds in this song? Listen.”

Jack hesitated. “Daniel, ‘Blackbird’ was six tracks ago. That song ended already.”

“Oh.” Daniel’s face fell. “I thought it was still playing…”

Jack took a deep breath. It wasn’t unusual for this to happen, for Daniel’s brain to delay and misconstrue time.

“How’s our bread coming along?” he asked instead.

He stepped around Daniel’s back to see the counter. Neat slices of spoon bread lay in a fan pile—

Covered in red.

Jack’s heart rate spiked. “Daniel! You’re bleeding!”

He ran for the bathroom’s first aid kit, Daniel’s voice faintly asking, “Did you know most household accidents happen in the kitchen?”

“Yes, Daniel, I am now _very _well acquainted with this fact.” Jack pried the knife from Daniel’s hand, threw it in the sink, and examined both palms. A wide slice, from the wrist joint of his friend’s thumb and wrapping around the pinky finger, marred his left hand. “Aww, Danny…”

“Oh,” said Daniel again. “I didn’t even notice.”

_Neither did I_. Guilt churned like bile in Jack’s sternum. He pressed gauze onto the dripping wound. Blood spatter was on the counter, the floor, both men’s shirts. The serrated bread knife had frayed the skin edges.

“Jack?”

“Not your fault, Danny. These episodes will go away soon enough.”

“Jack?”

“_What_, Daniel?” Jack immediately regretted the snap.

“I think…I think I’m going to need that chair now.”

Jack whipped up from his frenzied cleaning of the wound. Daniel swayed backwards and his skin drained.

In some miraculous feat, Jack hooked a chair with his ankle and caught Daniel around the waist simultaneously. His hands scrabbled for Daniel’s belt so that the man’s descent was controlled.

Daniel sank onto the chair, breathing shallow.

Jack sat across from him, panting hard from fear, and began to wrap the hand. Daniel stretched out his elbow on the table to allow him better reach. His other hand cradled his forehead.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

Jack gave the cotton-Telfa bandage a particularly hard tug. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. You just scared me. We have to talk about that nasty habit of yours.”

“Cutting myself on things?”

“Sending me to an early grave from worry. And _I’m _sorry.”

“For what?”

Jack’s jaw twitched. “For being stupid enough to give my best friend who suffers from _lapse episodes _a knife. I should have known better. I failed to protect you.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “Stop beating yourself up, William Wallace.”

“My job is more than protecting you off world, Daniel.”

“I know.”

“That’s the whole reason you’re here, because Janet and the SGC trusted me with the rest of your recovery.”

“I _know_.”

_And I’m going to mess it up_. _I just _did _mess it up._

As if he’d heard this thought—he probably had—Daniel growled in frustration. “Jack, stop!”

For once, Jack obeyed. Gurgling broth filled the place of words. A gash this deep probably needed stitches, but it could wait to see Doc Fraiser until morning. Daniel was pale, the wound already clotting.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” said Jack.

“Shoot.” Daniel was blessedly in the present, one hundred percent.

“That day we had a bonfire and…and went stargazing. You poked me. Why?”

Daniel’s eyes tracked the hypnotic winding of the bandage. Around and around. He sniffed, wrist swiping once at his nose.

“Daniel?”

“I poked you because you love steak.”

Jack’s mouth did a thoughtful little down flip and then smoothed. “Yeah. If I had to have a last meal type thing, I’d choose steak.”

“Exactly. Yet you weren’t eating much of it. I guess…I thought I had to trigger ‘normal’ you as my brain remembered. I thought I was losing memories of you or that Haines had manipulated them.”

“That day wasn’t a memory. We’d never done it before.”

Daniel shook his head. “But you eating steak was within the realm of how I know you. You _not _eating steak threw me for a loop. I don’t know.”

Surprised by this answer but keeping his face calm, Jack taped off the bandage and squeezed the hand. “There. I can put on my hockey jersey and swig back some beer if that would reaffirm my manly O’Neill-ness to you.”

Daniel pinned him with a wry grin. “No, that won’t be necessary. Even Haines’ recreations had nothing on you. Some things you just can’t…make up.”

Jack stood, patting the side of Daniel’s face once. He shoved some Tylenol in Daniel’s good hand.

“I don’t feel much pain, if you can believe that.”

“I do. Take them anyway. Trust me. It’ll reduce swelling.”

And for once, Daniel obeyed Jack without question.

It was a night for firsts.

“You’re not going to lose me.”

Daniel dropped the water glass onto the table. His gaze swung up to Jack, more open than he’d been even that night he first spoke. It was something so young looking, something so vulnerable.

That vulnerability was a mirror and Jack’s greatest mission all in one.

“You’re not going to lose me,” he said again, for good measure. “Not in body or in your mind, got it?”

“I-I know. Or, at least, I _will_ know.”

Jack nodded, knowing that was as much of a verbal admission to the intense emotional upheaval Daniel had experienced during Haines’ medical torture that he would get tonight.

“I know just the thing to get your blood sugars back up.” Jack spun around in a “ta-da!” motion, holding a plate of chocolate fudge. “Courtesy of Linda.”

“That’s great. Thanks, Jack.” Daniel grabbed the plate from him and polished off two squares before Jack could get in an indignant yelp.

“Hey! No hogging the fudge!”

Daniel’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “Oh? I thought Lead Chef always tasted first.”

“Not when chocolate is on the line. Careful, I know where you keep your meds.”

“I know where your bait tackle is.”

Jack put a hand to his chest. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would.”

“Savage.”

“Jerk.”

“Punk.”

“…Old fart.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written June 2017.


End file.
